John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneA fisher tries his luck near an oil rig in Lake Pontchartrain in 1994.

Lake Pontchartrain has been protected from new oil and gas drilling since 1991, and reopening this fragile and precious body of water to the environmental risks posed by drilling would be a giant step backward for the lake and metro New Orleans.

But this isn't a case of the economy vs. the environment. A clean, healthy Lake Pontchartrain is an enormous economic resource -- as a source of seafood and as place for fishing, boating and other recreation.

Its recovery is a success story for South Louisiana, which is struggling with the loss of wetlands and habitat across the region. The same shallow body of water that had been damaged by shell-dredging and fouled by sewage and chemical-laden urban runoff has been revived through the efforts of environmental activists and average Louisianians who remembered a time when the lake was clean and swimmable and dreamed of sharing that with their children and grandchildren.

Those people didn't work so hard to see the newly recovered lake threatened by potential oil spills.

The arguments that raged in the 1990s, when the lake was suffering from decades of abuse are the same ones that are being made now: that the country needs energy independence; that the economy is bad, and that New Orleans needs the boost oil and gas drilling could provide.

Louisiana showed foresight when it put the lake's health ahead of those arguments then. That shouldn't change now.

The nation's energy needs are important, and Louisiana continues to play a key role in meeting that need. But vast areas already are open to drilling in Louisiana and off the coast. There are 16 active wells in Lake Pontchartrain as well -- those that were active before the moratorium took effect.

The State Mineral Board's decision to stop new drilling in 1991 showed what was then a new environmental sensitivity. The board has remained consistent since then, renewing the ban every two years until voting to make it permanent in 2000.

When Mr. Kimball brought up the idea of lifting the ban this year, he said that the board "went into cardiac arrest." The matter didn't come to a vote, in part because the board wasn't sure how incoming Gov. Bobby Jindal felt about drilling.

That's still unclear. But Gov. Jindal would be making a poor trade if he sacrificed the lake's well-being for the short-term gains of renewed drilling.

The cleaner, healthier lake that today boasts sea grass, dolphins and manatees came about because Louisianians were willing to make the necessary sacrifices -- from reducing urban runoff to halting shell dredging.

The State Mineral Board has said that it would likely hold public hearings before any vote on the ban, and that's a commitment the board must make. Louisianians who value Lake Pontchartrain must be heard. And they should be heeded.